Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

Image courtesy VBS.tv's excellent 12-part video series.

Out in the beautiful deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean swirls a giant mass of plastic trash. It’s huge, it’s gross, and it’s growing.

Some Say It’s Twice the Size of Texas

This giant plastic trash continent goes by many names: the Pacific Gyre, the Great Garbage Patch, and Garbage Island. And before the real estate speculator in you gets excited about the possibility of a new oceanfront property, you should know it’s not a single cohesive mass of trash, but rather billions and billions of plastic pieces, big and small, that float out to sea and collect in a large, shifting swirl, thanks to ocean currents.

For an eye-opening visual of this floating trash vortex, see VBS.tv’s excellent (but, parents be warned, foul-mouthed) 12-part video series. Each episode is about seven-minutes long: http://www.vbs.tv/shows.php?show=1154

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Unfortunately, the vast majority of plastics manufactured are not biodegradable. That means this patch of old bottles, toothbrushes, straws, nets, shoelace tips, wrappers, packaging, and more is here to stay. The pieces of plastic do, over time, erode into smaller pieces, which are then ingested by birds and fish, which then are ingested by us. Pause here to think not only how disgusting that is, but how harmful to our health it is to ingest known toxins and carcinogens.

What Can You Do to Stop the Great Garbage Patch?

There’s been some talk about cleaning the mess up, though due to the enormity of the task and small pieces, it may not be feasible. Think how hard it is to fish out a single speck of eggshell from a bowl of cracked eggs and multiply that by trillions.

The best way to help is to stop it from growing. And the best way to stop the Great Garbage Patch from growing is to reduce our consumption of plastics, non-biodegradable plastics, in particular.

I, for one, tuck a small shopping bag in my purse when I go out, just in case I make an impulse buy. For planned shopping trips, I bring my own bags. I carry a stainless steel water bottle with me instead of buying bottled water. I don’t use straws. I refill our hand soap dispensers. I avoid products with lots of wrappers. And, of course, I recycle what plastics can be recycled. It’s not the entire solution, but it’s a start. It’s also, honestly, a lot less convenient. But thinking of the huge floating plastic trash heap keeps me in line.

There are millions of ways to make a difference. I’ve heard of people bring their own food containers for takeout and bringing containers back to their neighborhood health food store for refills. If you have more ideas, please post a comment and share them here.

More resources:

Join the Stop the Great Garbage Patch cause on Facebook:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/57731?recruiter_id=10314532

“Giant Plastic Soup Floats Out to Sea,” on frogblog:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2008/02/11/giant-plastic-soup-floats-out-to-sea/

“Is There a Solution to the Continent of Plastic that Pollutes the Pacific?” on Fat Knowledge:
http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-there-solution-to-continent-of.html

“Continent-Size Toxic Plastic Stew of Plastic Trash Fouling the Pacific Ocean,” San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/18/SS6JS8RH0.DTL

photo credit: SqueakyMarmot

If you love seafood as much as I do, you should know that there is less of a reason to fear for your health or that of the ocean’s when you are armed with the knowledge to make educated choices about the type of fish that you buy (where it comes from and what species it is) as well as how you prepare it.  You can stop avoiding the fish market or the fish entrée served at your local restaurant if you follow a few easy guidelines in making your selections:

Sustainable Fishing Certification: One of the keys to making smarter choices when purchasing fish has been simplified through the sustainable seafood certification methods implemented by the Marine Stewardship Council. This non-profit organization works with independent, accredited certifiers to ascertain whether or not various fishery practices meet the following standards of sustainable fishing methods.

Every fishery must demonstrate that it meets 3 core principles:

Principle 1: Sustainable fish stocks
The fishing activity must be at a level, which is sustainable for the fish population. Any certified fishery must operate so that fishing can continue indefinitely and is not overexploiting the resources.

Principle 2: Minimizing environmental impact
Fishing operations should be managed to maintain the structure, productivity, function and diversity of the ecosystem on which the fishery depends.

Principle 3: Effective management
The fishery must meet all local, national and international laws and must have a management system in place to respond to changing circumstances and maintain sustainability.

The blue MSC ecolabel can be found on seafood products at fish markets and retailers throughout the world.  Check out their website (http://www.msc.org/) to see which retailers in your area are carrying MSC certified products.  You may be surprised to find retailers, such as Target and Walmart listed among the likes of Whole Foods.

Choosing Safe Fish: Different types of fish are known to be more harmful than others, depending on the general preferred fishing practices for each species. There are a handful of downloadable pocket guides that you can keep in your wallet and reference the next time you are out shopping for seafood.

Some safer seafood to purchase include:
Anchovies
Catfish (farmed)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Salmon (Alaska, wild-caught)
Scallops, Bay (farmed)
Striped Bass (farmed)
Tilapia (U.S. farmed)
Tuna: Ahi, Yellowfin, Bigeye, Albacore (pole/troll-caught)
White Seabass

Some seafood to avoid:
Cod (Atlantic)
Crab, King (imported)
Chilean Seabass (Toothfish)
Halibut (Atlantic)
Monkfish
Orange Roughy
Shrimp (imported)
Snapper (imported)
Swordfish (imported)
Tuna: Bluefin

For complete downloadable pocket guides, visit one of the following websites:

http://www.audubon.org/campaign/lo/seafood/
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521&redirect=seafood

Cooking Your Fish:
Since seafood can be contaminated with toxins, including mercury and PCBs, the way you cook your fish is another factor to consider since these toxins tend to build up in the fat of the fish:

• Before cooking, remove the skin, fat (found along the back, sides and belly), internal organs, tomalley of lobster and the mustard of crabs, where toxins are likely to accumulate.
• When cooking, be sure to let the fat drain away avoid or reduce fish drippings as much as possible.
• Grilling or broiling fish is much better than frying fish in order to avoid sealing in chemical pollutants that might be stored in the fish’s fat.

Additional Resources

Environmental Defense Fund:
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=79

WWF:
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/our_solutions/sustainable_fishing/sustainable_seafood/index.cfm